Friday, July 9, 2010

Christmas in July!

We have had a fantastic week. On Monday, the container we shipped from Iowa in March arrived! Hip Hip Hooray is all that needs to be said, but I will say a little more.

The container was schedule to arrive much earlier than July, like May 29. But because of the South Africa transport strike in May the harbors were back logged. Last Friday we received word that the container would be arriving to us in Welkom on Monday. We were told we would be receiving the truck company's phone number so we could stay in touch as to the time it would arriving. Well, this is Africa and that call never came. The call that did come rang at 4:45AM on Monday morning. The truck driver was at a gas station waiting to be escorted to the location. So, Brian got up, dressed and escorted the driver to the property. The crane wasn't able to get to the property until 10AM, which actually turned into 11.

(Lindie and Pops)

(Kids playing on the rock pile)

To help celebrate this joyous occasion and to give some little people an educational experience, we had a small crowd cheering on the crew as they unloaded the container. Nana and Pops (Trish and Lawrence) brought their three grandchildren, Dannie-a close friend, the O'Tool gang and our family gathered to wait and watch the BIG moment. Because the crane was almost an hour late and the property only consists of dirt, a pile of rock and a pile of sand the kids found great entertainment on the rock pile. They also received a bath as soon as we got home.

(Guys hooking up the chains)

The container was safely unloaded. From there we headed to The Pines to move the O'Tool's container and then our container. Now all three containers reside at the property. On Tuesday, we spent the day repacking our personal containers to make room for the items coming out of the container that just arrived. More to come on that later...

(moving our containers from The Pines)

Just know that we are enjoying Christmas in July. It is winter here so it is rather fitting with the weather.